Face-Lift 252

Guess the Plot

From Gray Mists, Returned

1. A faerie uses a human guy to destroy the "Gray Mists," thus opening a portal that allows all the creatures of mythology to enter our world. Chaos ensues.

2. Rainforest dweller Amanda "Gray Mists" Park, thinks she's rid the world of another unbearable cooking show hostess. But two of the stamps fell off the bomb, and after failing to answer the postman's knock, Amanda opens her door to find the deadly ticking package -- returned.

3. After being lost and given up for dead in December, a team of six mountaineers descend from the misty heights of Mt. Wiqwee in February. But all is not well -- they're undead abominable snowmen, and they're freezing all the ninnies in Malibu.

4. Amanda Marsland's car breaks down in a fog. Walking for help, she finds herself in a village in AD 1240, unwillingly involved in their problems--especially those of the handsome knight of the manor. On the next foggy night she finds her way back to her car and our time. But now, the one thing she wants in life is to return to 1240.

5. When aspiring writer Logorrhea Witherspoon receives a package, she hopes for the best. Tearing open the plain brown wrapper, she finds her manuscript, with a form rejection and a request from Gray Mists Publishing to never submit again. Will she find the courage to write on?

6. For fifty years librarian Millicent Bottomweather tsk-tsked when patrons claimed they had returned books which clearly they had not. Now, one foggy day in November, hundreds of goblins emerge from the mists to return the thousands of missing books. Will Millicent succeed in collecting their late fees?


Original Version

Dear Editor,

Demitri is an ordinary guy who wakes up one night and finds his house on fire. The fire kills his wife, and is about to kill him. [Lucky for him the fire started on her side of the bed.]

All these things are the least of his problems. [Those may be the least of his problems, but I don't recommend putting them on the back burner.]

A Faerie appears and snatches him away, moments before certain death. But now, Demitri is in even greater danger as the Faerie uses him to destroy the Gray Mists, a barrier which seperates our world from another world -- one that contains all of the creatures of myth and all the magic that have long since been absent from our own world. [Maybe it's just me, but I don't see living in a world where Pegasus and Hercules and Narcissus are real as more dangerous than imminent certain death in a fire.] She uses him and then discards him, a battered man, burnt from the house fire and on the verge of death. [Why did she use him? Did she need a burnt guy?]

He doesn't die, though, and as the strain of returning magic begins to tear the world apart, it falls to Demitri to try to re-seal the portal and repair the damage. He doesn't understand why something like this should fall to him, [Nor do I. I assume you're about to explain.] but it does [But it does? That's the explanation?] and he's the only one who can stop the unfolding chaos. [How about a few examples of the unfolding chaos. Are there centaurs and minotaurs and unicorns roaming the world? Are guys trying to push huge boulders up hills? Because that would all be cool.]

FROM GRAY MISTS, RETURNED is an urban-fantasy novel, complete at 100,000 words. It's about how the world changes around us, sometimes despite our best efforts. [Sometimes, despite all our precautions, we find Medusa, Cerberus and Chimaera in our coat closet.] It's about doing the right thing, even when it's the hardest possible thing you can do. It's about change, and loss, and it's about finding your place. [In short, it's about vagueness personified.] [The eighth labor of Hercules: destroying the Vagueron, an invisible creature that did things to stuff.] It is also, I hope, just a good story.

Although this is my first novel, I have been writing short fiction for many years now. I am also an assistant editor for a science fiction magazine, Blood, Blade & Thruster.

It is both your reputation as an agent, as well as my enjoyment of the works of your clients which gave me reason to send my novel to you for consideration. [Aw, I bet you say that to everyone you query.] I would be happy to send the full manuscript at your request.

Thanks for your time!


Notes

The paragraph telling what the book's about needs specifics, or you may as well leave it out. It says nothing after the genre and word count.

For that matter, after the fire, I don't know anything that happens in the book. And the fire could be on page one. How about some facts/events/concrete examples?

Shouldn't Demitri be spelled Demetri? Then it would be like the goddess Demeter, and the numerous Demetriuses, including Demetrius and the Gladiators, in which Jay Robinson plays Caligula. Yes, the same Jay Robinson who played Lord Petri in the Star Trek episode "Elaan of Troyius," in which Kirk must teach the arrogant Dohlman about the ways of love. Actual lines from a deleted scene in that episode:

Uhura (listening to Spock play the Vulcan lyre): I'd certainly like to learn how to play that.

Spock: I'd be glad to give you the theory. The mathematics are somewhat complex. To my knowledge, no non-Vulcan has ever mastered the skill. You see, we Vulcans have natural rhythm.